Assassin’s Creed III Meta Review – A Round Table of “Prose” and Cons

In the mood for a little sly and sneaky… a little bloodletting…? Got a proclivity for Parkour, maybe? Well Assassin’s Creed III just dropped yesterday. So what are you all waiting for. The nefarious evil-doers of the historical variety, aren’t going to assassinate themselves. Oh I see. You lot think you’re clever, don’t ya? Think you can just sit back and wait for “Uncle GR” to give you the good dirt? Is the game worth your meticulously hunted pelts? Nope, not gonna do it! But I will give you a glimpse into the minds of editors-turned-digital-assassins.

Assassin’s Creed III is UbiSoft’s 6th entry into this popular franchise. You play as Connor, a mixed heritage protagonist skilled in the ways of the assassin. The setting is the New World – 1775, amid the backdrop of the American Revolution. Departing from the past games. AC3 takes the player away from the cold concrete and cobblestone environs of previous games. Now you are doing your free-running-to-eviscerate through dense forests, along trees, mountain ranges and more. The game also introduces a number of new weapons such as the tomahawk, the rope dart, the bow and Naval vessels (Wait! What!?). But one of the bolder new inclusion is the often-scoffed microtransactions. You can’t buy anything you can’t earn. But the impatiently-lucrative will surely take advantage of this newness.

Through your jaunt, Connor is tasked with securing liberty for his Native American people, though he does prove to be quite indiscriminate in this, killing and impaling both Red and Blue Coast alike. This bit of emotional intrigue should be highly compelling. As we all know, Connor can’t possibly hope to defeat the heavily armed Red Coats and their thirst for New World land and its dominance. Or can he?

But you all know the back story. So let’s see if these folks can help you all decide.

Destructoid

When it comes right down to it, cohesion (or lack thereof) is the main issue with Assassin’s Creed III. There are dozens of secondary elements which make up the content of the game, but they offer little in terms of reward and rarely contribute anything to the Assassin/Templar conflict. While the game is often quite fun, beautiful to look at and empowering to the player, it doesn’t offer much challenge beyond the endurance necessary to complete all of the single-player campaign elements. That said, it does offer answers to many of the questions players have in terms of the series’ plot up to now and is easy to become absorbed in. Fans of Assassin’s Creed should be amply satisfied by these aspects, but some of the shallowness found might be displeasing to lovers of other open-world titles which do a better job of making player investment feel meaningful.

Eurogamer

Assassin’s Creed was once a fascinating mystery wrapped around a fun action-adventure – remember when you first loaded up the original game and it began in the Abstergo offices and you had no idea what was going on? – but that fun action-adventure game has long since eclipsed the fiction that envelops it. That’s more true than ever in Assassin’s Creed 3, where you’re a hunter, a ship captain, a silent killer, an entrepreneur, a swashbuckling sword-fighter and many other things besides. It all serves to make this the biggest and richest Assassin’s Creed game to date – maybe not the best, but a place where, for want of a better expression, everything is permitted.

The Escapist

Assassin’s Creed III lets you jump into an intriguing point in history, and it succeeds on nearly every level with nimble combat, fun diversions and the chance to captain your own ship. Connor might not be an altogether likeable hero, but the New World he’s fighting to protect is one you won’t forget. Grab it as soon as you can. For how much quality gameplay it offers, Assassin’s Creed III feels like four independently excellent games rolled into one. When you finally finish everything in single player, there is so much more fun to be had in multiplayer, which is completely separate from the single player experience. It is presented as being a commercially available online game created by Abstergo Entertainment, the game development arm of the Templar-run corporation. You play in a number of locales that were from the game, and some that were not, such as an abstract and partially rendered New York City.

G4TV

When you finally finish everything in single player, there is so much more fun to be had in multiplayer, which is completely separate from the single player experience. It is presented as being a commercially available online game created by Abstergo Entertainment, the game development arm of the Templar-run corporation. You play in a number of locales that were from the game, and some that were not, such as an abstract and partially rendered New York City.

So there you have it. The virtual hitmen of the American Revolution have spoken. Did any speak particularly to your interests. Sold? Let us know. The mighty GR review will come in time. But personally, I’m waiting on the PC version.

Assassin’s Creed III is available now on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. PC stalwarts get to traverse the open New World and stab them with the pointy end, come this November 20th!

Shawn Sanders

Shawn loves gadgets, literature, history and games. For 10yrs+ he's straddled both the comic book & video game industries, as a writer, editor, marketing officer & producer. Shawn got his start in tech & games as an editor & Hardware Director for GameRevolution.com. More notable accomplishments include Executive Producer on mobile games Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved & The Shroud.

Assassin’s Creed 3 looks pretty awesome, but I can’t help
but be a bit skeptical. Maybe it’s because that even though I liked the previous
games, it’s never been one of my favorite franchises. Maybe I’m just cynical
because I’ve been disappointed too many times. For instance, I was beyond
psyched for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And while Deus Ex couldn’t be called a
‘bad’ game, it wasn’t nearly what I was hoping for and the ending left me with
a bad taste in my mouth, and it sounds like I’m in for similar with AC3. So I’ve
been following the advice of one of my coworkers at DISH and I’ve sworn off
buying any games until I’ve rented them first, which has of course, saved me
from buying a number of games, and saved me a good deal of money. Assassin’s
Creed 3 is already in my Blockbuster @Home queue from DISH, so I’ll get to play
it shortly.